


That's How Much I Think Our Friendship Is Worth

by singing_to_empty_caves



Series: That's What Bein' A Friend Is About [10]
Category: Mother 1 | EarthBound Zero | EarthBound Beginnings
Genre: Coming Out, ana has no idea what gay is, ana uses music analogies, and ana is part of it this time, as usual, i'm sorry for hurting him so often, lloyd is scare, ninten and lloyd renew their v--OATH, singing cactus, who in fact is m. jones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24899362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singing_to_empty_caves/pseuds/singing_to_empty_caves
Summary: Each member of this little team is important, and they all look after each other through thick and thin.
Relationships: Ana & Lloyd & Ninten (Mother 1), Lloyd & Ninten (Mother 1), ana & lloyd, lloyd/ninten (one-sided)
Series: That's What Bein' A Friend Is About [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1524248
Comments: 10
Kudos: 15





	That's How Much I Think Our Friendship Is Worth

“Why are we still out here?” Lloyd complained, shielding his eyes from the sun and watching the air warp in heat waves around him. He wasn’t sure how long they’d been walking, but he knew it was too long for his liking.

“I told you on the plane!” Ninten insisted. “There was a cactus out here, it wasn’t like the others!”

Lloyd glanced over the barren desert landscape. Still no cacti. “We’ve been out here for _hours_ looking for the cactus, Ninten!”

“Well, we gotta find it and learn the next melody!” Ninten insisted, like it should’ve been obvious.

Ninten’s enthusiasm made Lloyd's heart flutter… as usual.

What was he supposed to do with these feelings now? He wasn't going to lie to himself again, especially now that Ninten knew about them. But he also knew that Ninten very clearly didn't feel the same way. The movies never showed anything like this. If a boy fell in love with a girl, and he told her, she either liked him back or she got mad at him. What about when someone was _nice_ about saying no?

Hopefully getting a concrete answer from Ninten would make this all go away soon. For right now, he would keep the thoughts inside his head, and just keep his daydreams in line… because he didn't feel like it was right to make up romantic scenes, even if they only featured an imaginary Ninten--and because he constantly feared that Ana would catch on. The last thing he needed was for someone else to know about these feelings.

“Ninten,” Ana sighed.

Ninten glanced over at her, squinting from the sunlight. “Yeah?”

“Doesn’t a melody need to come from something that makes noise?”

“Hey, we don’t know if that cactus talks!” Ninten defended.

“He’s got a point,” Lloyd said. “I’ve seen semi trucks stare him dead in the eyes before. Trucks aren’t supposed to have eyes in the first place… or mouths.”

“Thank goodness we’re not dealin’ with those things anymore!”

Ana looked absolutely exasperated under the layer of sweat on her face. “Am I the only reasonable one here?”

“Aw, c’mon!” Ninten groaned. “You played a haunted piano, and you’re still not convinced?!"

"It wasn't _haunted_ , it was affected by evil. The same evil we encountered in Easter, in fact."

"Ya mean the one that Weird-ified us? But that piano didn't have the crazy eyes!"

"Something about it worked _with_ the Weird-ifying force. It's difficult to explain, but…" Ana sighed and glanced up at the sky like it would help her find the words. "Oh! Dissonance. Lloyd, I know you're not very musical, so I'll explain."

She stopped and held out her right hand, fingers spread. Lloyd and Ninten stopped to watch her--Lloyd was trying to ignore the heat radiating through the soles of his shoes.

"In music, there's logic to the notes. The differences between each note are either a _half step_ or a _full step._ Playing two notes at once can sound very different, depending on how many steps are between them.”

Ana held her index finger and thumb up against each other, distant from the other fingers.

“Let’s say this is a half-step. These two ‘notes’ are almost the same, just a tiny bit off. The sound is meant to be unsettling.”

She folded down her index finger and touched her thumb to her middle finger.

“This is a full step, but it still doesn’t sound nice and neat and happy. Both of these combinations so far have been dissonant, which means the notes sort of fight each other.”

She folded down all but her thumb and pinkie, struggled to get them to touch, then giggled and gave up. Instead, she just held them both up.

“This is something called a _third._ So, if my thumb is the first step, then the middle finger is the second step, and the pinkie is the third step! That makes sense, right? This isn’t dissonant anymore, it’s _consonant._ These notes sound happy together.”

“How’s this about that piano?” Ninten asked.

“I’m getting there!”

Ana wiggled her thumb.

“Let’s say this is what’s Weird-ifying everything. And all of the things we’ve fought are here,” she continued, raising her index finger. “A half-step away. They clash with each other. Just like a half-step sounds tense in music, the Weirdness isn’t playing nice with the things it affects.”

“Weirdness! Why didn’t I think a’ that?!” Ninten yelled.

Lloyd almost reached for Ninten’s arm, but stopped himself at the last second. “Focus, Ninten. Ana’s trying to explain something to us.”

“...Sorry, Ana.”

“It’s all right. I’m glad you liked my nickname,” she said with a small smile. “Anyways. My point is,the Weird-ified are all completely lost to the Weirdness, but the piano wasn’t going totally bonkers like everything else. It was _different._ Obviously, it wasn’t anything good, but…”

Ana lowered her index finger again and raised her middle finger. Ninten stifled a laugh, and Lloyd couldn’t stop himself from flicking Ninten in the arm.

“The piano was just a little bit closer to a good sound. It wasn’t as angry, or as stressful. It was a full step--still dissonant, but it needed less of a push to be resolved, and that’s why we were able to stop it by playing the keys instead of using violence. There was a… sort of a weakness in the Weirdness, enough that I could speak to the piano. I’ve never been able to speak to a Weird-ified.”

“Is that why you were so interested in the name on the piano?” Ninten asked. “M. Jones, right? How’s that fit into the scale?”

With a sigh, Ana reached up and adjusted her hat. “The analogy doesn’t go quite that far, Ninten. But you’re right, I was wondering about that. A piano can’t really have its own energy--whatever made it a bit more tolerant of the Weirdness, it had to have come from a person or place. And, you know, it’s not exactly everyone on the planet engraving their names on pianos.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Ninten conceded.

“But then you two somehow discovered that _feelings_ are effective against the Weird-ified, too. All the ideas I had about this ‘M. Jones’, they don’t make sense anymore!”

Lloyd glanced over at Ninten in panic, silently begging him to not bring up any details about the Easter incident. However, Ninten… just looked confused.

“How come?” Ninten asked.

“Well, the only reason I could even reach out to the piano was that it wasn’t completely Weird-ified. Once the Weirdness takes over, if we’re going by my guesses, then there’s no way to reach the person inside without getting rid of the Weirdness from the outside. It’s too strong!”

"You're right. Huh."

Okay, good, he didn't mention it. Lloyd really needed to learn how to keep his worrying under control. Somehow, the fear of Ana finding out about Easter was overtaking his ability to think straight--his mind was constantly muddled by worst-case scenarios. Maybe he was being paranoid, but after her little speech about Ninten in the train station a while back, he was convinced she’d never understand. Even if she--

Wait. Ana was assuming that using feelings to save someone from the Weirdness meant that they had to be aware of what was going on and get rid of the Weirdness themselves. What if that wasn’t the case at all? Lloyd remembered realizing that the intensity of his words mattered more than what he was actually talking about--but Ninten remembered what he said..?

"We're looking at it all wrong!" Lloyd realized.

"Whaddya mean?"

"Well, at first it made sense for the Weird-ified to only respond to violence, because we assumed that was the only thing powerful enough to hurt the Weirdness. M. Jones’s piano didn’t need as much of a push, sure--I trust your Telepathy, Ana--but now we have new information. It’s not that the Weird-ified are responding to something they shouldn’t be. We just didn’t realize that emotions were as strong against the Weirdness itself as violence is. It’s not making the Weird-ified fight the Weirdness, it’s getting rid of the Weirdness on its own!"

Ana considered Lloyd’s words for a moment. “Are you saying that… somehow the Weirdness cares about our feelings as much as a person would?”

Ninten's eyes widened, and he clapped his hands in excitement. "So that means the Weirdness can’t stand three things: violence, love, and whoever M. Jones is!”

As soon as he finished his sentence, Ninten wheezed loudly, and Lloyd winced as he brought out his inhaler for what felt like the millionth time that day. The three of them were burning in the sun, and if Lloyd could see a thing without his glasses, he would’ve taken them off a long time ago. He couldn’t imagine what this would be like if his glasses had metal frames instead of plastic.

More importantly, as brave as Ninten was, he was also reckless. Lloyd usually thought it was only a minor issue, but the last thing he wanted was for Ninten to pass out and Ana to have to attempt a teleport with either herself or Lloyd carrying his body.

And teleportation was a whole other beast. As the group continued on through the sand, Lloyd considered whether he could’ve even begun to expect this back when he first met Ninten--being on a journey to stop a widespread crisis with two psychics who could _teleport._ On one hand, he saw Ninten use PSI Shield right away. On the other hand, he mostly just seemed like an energetic kid covered in scrapes and bruises, carrying an inhaler like he couldn’t get enough air to pump blood through his tall, bony body.

“Why do you keep saying it like that?” Ana asked out of nowhere.

Ninten startled. “Like what? Sorry.”

“Well, when Lloyd told me what you’d found out about defeating the Weird-ified, he referred to emotions. We’ve been talking about feelings this whole time, but you keep using the word ‘love’ every time. It’s more specific. Why is that?”

Lloyd watched Ninten stop in his tracks and turn white as a ghost. He suddenly realized that, with Ninten’s constant (and often brutal) honesty, he never got the chance to know if Ninten was a good liar. Or would Ninten even try to lie?

“I-I mean, uh, there’s no reason,” Ninten stammered.

They were both doomed.

“That’s convincing,” Ana deadpanned.

“Uh…”

“Ninten, if you have something that could help us stop the Weird-ified--”

“Nothin’ I ain’t told y’all already!” Ninten yelled, squeezing his eyes shut.

Ana groaned in frustration. “Okay, even if I ignore the fact that your twang clearly gets worse when you’re lying--”

“I AIN’T LYIN’!”

“ _If I’m helping you, I need you to trust me, too!_ ”

Ouch.

Ninten struggled to find words as Lloyd tried to process what had happened.

Ana caught on to Ninten’s references to Easter. Ninten tried his hardest to keep Lloyd’s secret, but he couldn’t tell a decent lie if his life depended on it. Ana, understandably, didn’t believe him. Lloyd was trying not to think about the way Ninten’s voice sounded with a thicker accent. But then Ana… raised a very good point.

If the three of them were going to risk their lives--and he understood now that they really were in for that kind of danger--they needed to be able to trust each other. Lloyd, up to this point, had stood by his decision that how he felt about Ninten was a very personal matter and he didn’t want anyone to know unless they absolutely had to.

His fingers twitched, trying to wad up his hoodie in his hands--but then he remembered he wasn’t wearing it. Ninten made him take it off when he realized Lloyd was flushed from the heat.

…He was trying to hide, wasn’t he? He didn’t want anyone to know unless they had to--that was the kind of thing his mother said about trying to pretend she was healthy. That was the kind of thing she said about sending him to the library to keep him away when his parents argued. It was the kind of thing that he found out when she fell asleep at the kitchen table with a list of groceries and a calculator in front of her.

Besides, how selfish was that? He wanted to stay all locked up--

      
_Did you really keep all this locked up since Snowman?!_  


\--and keep up appearances--

    _Ana, you’re not in church right_ now _. It’s okay to have fun!_

    

\--when Ninten and Ana were trusting him like a friend. Lloyd thought he remembered his dad saying something like, “trust is a two-way street”. Even if he didn’t, it made sense. Whether Lloyd liked it or not, what happened in Easter could be crucial to their understanding of the Weird-ified. He was only setting back their progress and hurting their friendships by keeping secrets.

And even if he was really, _really_ scared of Ana’s reaction, he had to consider that she gave Ninten a chance, and ended up changing her mind.

Still… he didn’t think he could do it right that second. He knew the words would get lost in his mouth, and he wasn’t exactly looking forward to sorting out the issue in the middle of a blazing hot desert. If he resolved to come clean, it would be later, when he knew he was safe from heatstroke.

“You’re right, Ana.” Lloyd meant to say it clearly, he really did, but he barely managed to push the sound out.

“Sorry?”

“I can explain what Ninten meant, but can it wait until tonight? We’re just standing out in full sunlight, and as much as I appreciate Ninten buying sunscreen, there’s only so much it can do.”

“That’s fair,” Ana relented. “Speaking of, where will we stay tonight? You know, now that we can go anywhere we like.”

Ninten cast a concerned look in Lloyd’s direction, briefly making Lloyd wonder what was going through his head, before focusing on Ana. “We’d better avoid Halloween, it’s not exactly in the best shape--Easter too. Uh… so we’ve got Mother’s Day, Thanksgiving, Reindeer, and Snowman.”

“Reindeer sounds just fine. I think we could do with some cold weather after we finally find this cactus of yours,” Ana said.

Ninten took a skip. “Sounds like a plan to me! All right, now that Ana’s talkin’ about the cold, I need some water. Anyone else?”

Lloyd had thought, for a long time in fact, that Ninten was oblivious to emotions. However, the way he kept glancing sidelong at Lloyd with wide eyes made it obvious that Ninten knew something was going on. At least Lloyd didn’t feel completely alone.

* * *

Ninten collapsed dramatically onto one of the beds in their hotel room, sprawling out like a lanky starfish on the covers.

“I cannot _believe_ we couldn’t find that stupid cactus!” he complained. “We spent all day in the sun, and Lloyd’s halfway to bein’ a cherry, and we still don’t have the fifth melody!”

Ana set down her bag and sat on the other bed. Though she was trying to keep a better attitude, Lloyd could clearly see that her clothes and hair were damp from sweat. He almost expected a suction noise when she took off her hat.

“Clearly, we’re missing something,” she declared. “If you really did see that cactus on the plane--”

“I did!”

“--then maybe there’s something keeping us from finding it on the ground. Ninten, you've heard more melodies than either of us. The things that teach you melodies--do they have anything in common?"

Ninten hummed. "Uh… well, there was a music box, a canary, a monkey and a piano. The music box was inside this doll my sister's got, it was a hand-me-down from our mom. She said it was her favorite doll growin' up. Um, the canary sang when I brought her lil' canary chick back to her. The monkey thanked me for savin' his girlfriend at the zoo, and you were both there for the piano."

Ana started untying her pigtails. "It sounds like they're all tied to family, or love. Um… I hate to bring this up so abruptly, but it might have to do with whatever it was Ninten meant about the Weird-ified and love."

Lloyd had had hours to prepare, but he still didn't feel ready. He took a deep breath in--

"I told Lloyd a secret."

Lloyd looked over at Ninten, caught completely off-guard. Ninten was sitting up on his bed, and he looked completely confident in what he was saying.

"Ninten?" Lloyd said.

He was startled to feel… a _presence_ enter his head. It was almost like Ana using Telepathy, but it didn't have any clear words with it. Instead, it was more like garbled noises that made him _feel_ things, not quite his own emotions. He felt confidence, reassurance, and determination all roll through a space in his head at once. Was… Ninten doing this?

"It's all right. I wanna tell her," Ninten said aloud.

Whatever Ninten had planned, he'd completely turned around from his weak attempt at a lie earlier.

"I, uh… I've gotta crush," Ninten pretended to admit, averting his eyes and swaying a little bit. "Lloyd knows about it, and he was yellin' at me in Easter to get me to wake up, and… well, he convinced me to come back for the gal I like, that's all."

Lloyd would’ve been grateful for this a few hours ago, but after his moment of clarity, he knew that Ninten was directing Ana away from information that could help them.

"Are you crazy?!" Lloyd burst out.

"What?! What is it?" Ninten panicked.

"I appreciate you trying to help out, and I'm really impressed by how good you've gotten at PSI Telepathy since Easter, but Ninten, this is _important!_ Lying about what happened will only get in the way of us finding the melodies!"

"Whaddya mean?! None a' that was a lie!" Ninten shouted as a burst of frustration hit Lloyd's mind.

Lloyd tried again to wad up his hoodie in his hands, but without anything to actually hold onto, he ended up digging his uneven fingernails into his palms as he stared at the hotel carpet.

“Ana, he’s trying to protect me. He’s not the one who confessed a crush. I am. The love we used against the Weirdness was… what I feel for Ninten.”

The last few words took all of his tension with them, leaving Lloyd to slouch over and let his hair fall over his eyes. He felt his face heat up as the silence carried on longer and longer.

“Wait, I don’t understand.” 

Lloyd looked up just enough to see Ana gesturing with her hands like she was trying to sort out thoughts only she could see--like her first response to Lloyd’s revelation was complete confusion.

“You’re a homosexual?”

The word sounded like an alien language in Ana’s voice. “Yes..?”

“I-I’m sorry, I was always taught that homosexuals were-were _predators_ , you know, older men trying to hurt children, but you’re a child yourself..?”

There were a lot of possibilities Lloyd had in mind for this scenario. Disgust? Sure. Shouting? Most likely. Resent? Maybe, if she was the jealous type. The least likely outcome he’d prepared for was that she would be as accepting as Ninten was. Apparently, he’d overlooked the potential for Ana to have such wild misinformation buried in her head. Despite all of his dread and worry before, Lloyd realized he was trying not to laugh.

Ana winced. “So that’s not right, is it?”

“No,” Lloyd said. “It’s kind of ridiculous, actually.”

“I figured not. I’m starting to wonder whether my father was right about _anything._ ”

Lloyd looked up from the floor. “So… you’re not upset?”

“No, just very confused. You see, as far as I was taught, men were meant to marry women, and anything else was perverse. But the reason I was given for homosexuals being such bad people was that they were aggressive, and hurt others, and-and they were constantly neck-deep in sin.”

“Well, that’s not right,” Ninten scoffed. “Jeez Louise, Ana! What kinda person would do all that?!”

“Clearly not Lloyd!”

“Yeah, no kiddin’!”

“So… if you aren’t a gross old man, then how does this all work for you?” Ana asked. “What’s it like?”

Lloyd took in the eager expressions on both of his friends’ faces and pushed his glasses up his nose. He didn’t feel awkward about explaining his feelings so much as he did about… well, explaining his feelings in front of the boy he liked and the girl who liked him, too.

“I mean… I’m pretty sure it’s just like how Ninten would feel about a girl. I just, uh, feel that way for boys instead of girls?”

“Well, it sounded just like love in the movies when you told me,” Ninten declared. “And I still don’t understand why people would be so mean to boys for likin’ boys. There’s nothin’ bad you’re doin’ about it!”

“People are mean to you?” Ana asked.

“I mean… to gay people, yeah.”

Ana and Ninten exchanged a look, just long enough that Lloyd wondered if they were using Telepathy with each other.

“Right. That won’t be happening anymore. If anyone’s ever mean to you over this, I’ll set them on fire,” Ana said.

“But--”

“Lloyd, ya keep sayin’ that!” Ninten groaned, flopping back over onto his back. ‘But’ this, ‘but’ that. Ya know, my mom has this thing she says. ‘No buts, just behinds.’”

“Your mom… makes butt jokes?”

“Naw!” Ninten laughed. “Well, yeah, it’s a joke, but it’s a _pun._ See, I used to talk like you do. I’d knock someone over at recess or somethin’, and even after the kid was up and playin’ again, I’d be upset. ‘But I hurt ‘im!’ Right? So one day, I came home, and my mom said she had a new rule for me. No buts, just behinds. If everyone’s ready to move on, then just quit it with the ‘but, but, but’. It’s okay. Leave it behind.”

Lloyd felt an insistent push in his head again, something bubbly trying to get him to relax. He recognized it clearly as Ninten this time, and he couldn’t stop the warm feelings that spread through him in response.

“Your mom sounds better every time you talk about her.”

“Well, yeah! She’s the best!”

Ninten hopped up to his feet and grabbed Lloyd’s hand, lifting it up to look at it under the light.

“She also knows a few tricks to help with sunburns… ‘course, that’s no good if we don’t have any milk, honey, or baking soda.”

Ana rolled her eyes at Ninten. “Are you trying to fix a sunburn or bake a cake?”

“I swear it works! Honest!”

Suddenly, Ninten was dragging Lloyd towards the bathroom.

“For now, the best thing we got is ice. Lloyd, sit there on the edge of the tub. I can make up an ice pack for ya--well, I mean, Ana can.” Ninten craned his neck to look back out of the bathroom. “Ana? Mind helpin’ us out with a PSI Freeze or two?”

As Ninten lectured Lloyd on why ice directly on his skin was bad, and went on about buying more sunscreen in the morning, Lloyd’s thoughts about him strayed from the normal path. He tried to imagine Ninten’s mother passing on these tidbits of wisdom to her son, who--much to her despair--ignored them, for the most part. A couple of them did stick around, though, and Ninten was using them to care for his friends. She must have been proud.

Lloyd was so used to looking after Ninten that this felt sort of unreal. Then again, while the sunburn made it near impossible to wear his hoodie, the damp hand towels filled with chunks of Ana’s ice were giving him the same secure feeling… so he decided that, at least this time, it would be okay.

* * *

Ninten’s stopwatch went off, and he dug his shoes into the sand. In one fluid motion, he slid his backpack off one arm and down to the other elbow, then unzipped it and pulled out a bottle of sunscreen.

“I’m still slippery from the last layer,” Lloyd complained.

“Well, you looked like a sheddin’ snake when ya woke up this morning! I’m not takin’ any chances.”

“The damage is already done!”

“I can at least keep it from gettin’ worse!”

“Boys.”

Ninten and Lloyd both looked up at Ana.

“Sorry, Ana…” Ninten muttered.

But after a few seconds, both Lloyd and Ninten realized that she wasn’t even looking at them. She was staring off at something in the distance…

“ _The cactus!_ ” Ninten shouted, sprinting for it. Lloyd grabbed the bottle he dropped, along with a few snacks and pens that had fallen out of the open backpack, and followed behind.

“Hi, Mister Cactus!” Ninten said. He was grinning at the cactus… which was grinning right back, in total silence.

“Uh, Nin--”

“How’d you know my name?” Ninten said, as if in response to something.

Lloyd stared at Ninten, who was completely focused on the blank smile in front of him. Lloyd strained to hear anything, but all he could catch were the sounds of sand in the wind.

“How’s that?” Ninten asked out of nowhere, loud enough to startle Lloyd.

“Is he holding a conversation with a plant?” Ana whispered to Lloyd.

“It wasn’t easy,” Ninten mumbled.

“What wasn’t easy?” Lloyd asked. 

Ninten didn’t answer him. This was starting to get scary.

“But Queen Mary doesn’t remember her song,” Ninten said. “How could she decide to share it?”

“Hey, Ana? Is this a PSI Telepathy thing?”

Ana shrugged. “I can’t hear a thing.”

“Ninten, I think you may be hallucinating,” Lloyd said gently. “Do you want to teleport to somewhere with air conditioning?”

“I’ve got water,” Ana offered.

Lloyd realized that during this silent conversation, Ninten had begun to look kind of uncomfortable. Whatever conversation Ninten may or may not have been having with this cactus, it was obviously more than a passing exchange.

Then, all in one moment, Ninten’s hands shot out and grabbed Ana’s and Lloyd’s. Both of them were startled--and even more so when they got the urge to focus and listen, spoken without words.

_The cactus sang._  
_For some reason, it sang…_  
_It sang with emotion._

_“Raise your voices…”_

Ninten dropped their hands, and suddenly Lloyd was thrown back into reality.

“That one had _words,_ ” Ninten stated in shock.

“Do you think all of them have words that we don’t know?” Ana asked.

“Could be…”

Ninten glanced over at Lloyd for half a second, then back at the cactus. Its smile had faded--it looked like any other cactus in this desert.

“That cactus knew Queen Mary,” he said. “It met her outside Magicant. I didn’t get to hear anything else about it before it gave us the melody.”

That was a startling piece of information. Lloyd was pretty sure Ninten said Queen Mary ruled Magicant. Why would the queen of an alternate dimension ever come to this one..?

“Can I tell y’all somethin’?” Ninten said, still staring at where the smile used to be.

“Yeah, of course,” Lloyd said.

“Ana, you couldn’t hear the cactus. Right?”

“No..?”

Ninten blinked a couple of times, then pulled the bill of his cap down to shield his eyes from the sand.

“Some people in Magicant told me stuff I keep thinkin’ about. Talkin’ about my family. The Flyin’ Men especially.”

Lloyd watched Ninten fidget with his hands and stare intently at the cactus, almost like he was trying to solve some riddle about it.

“Now, maybe it’s just my imagination… but I coulda sworn that cactus sounded just like my uncle Charlie.”

Lloyd shook his head. “I highly doubt--”

“Well, no, my uncle’s not a cactus. He was by for Christmas. That’s not the point.”

For the first time since they found the cactus, Ninten turned around to face his friends.

“I think there’s a reason my bedroom lamp got Weird-ified, and everyone in Magicant knew me, and this cactus knew me too. There’s a reason I’m out here instead of some other kid from my hometown. I think… _I’ve_ got somethin’ to do with all a’ this.”

“Well, _duh,_ ” Ana replied. “Are you kidding? Did you forget that I saw you in a dream before we met? I’m not sure exactly how you fit into the puzzle yet, but I know that you do. And I know that we’re meant to help you--we were chosen to do so. We were convinced to go on this journey with you. I was persuaded by a PSI connection, but I suppose Lloyd had to go another route.”

Lloyd blushed. “Hey, I didn’t know I liked him until we got to Snowman!”

“Regardless, that’s an important element to our success. You’re our leader, Ninten, and we need to be a close team to win this battle.”

Ninten’s eyes lit up. “That’s what Mister Cactus said!”

“Ninten, we didn’t hear that,” Lloyd reminded him.

“Right. Okay, so he said the reason we couldn’t find him yesterday was that there was a wedge in the group, somethin’ keepin’ us from trustin’ each other. I’d imagine it was Lloyd bein’ afraid to talk to Ana about Easter,” Ninten explained. “So if I really am a big part a’ this Weirdness thing, and you two are meant to help me, then that makes sense--we gotta trust each other!”

Ninten reached for the backpack Lloyd was holding and fished out his inhaler to take a quick puff.

“Which reminds me--Ana, I never had you take the oath!”

Lloyd had all but forgotten that an oath to Ninten was his biggest motivator in the beginning. It almost seemed inconsequential.

“Do we really need that?” Lloyd asked. “I think Ana and I aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.”

“It’s a formality,” Ninten answered. “Come on! You and I gotta take the oath again, too. Ana wasn’t part of it the first time.”

“Fine,” Lloyd agreed. He didn’t fight the fond smile growing on his face.

“All right, repeat after me, both of ya!”

_I solemnly swear to join my friends Ninten and Ana in defeating the Weird-ified and exploring every corner of the world. Should I turn against my friends, I’ll gladly die._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!  
> And thank you to RainyTazmily for looking over my writing this time around :)  
> I had a lot of ideas that'll probably end up in one of the other versions of this series. It's hard to scrap stuff I'm excited about, but it didn't fit very well into this story.  
> Comments and feedback are always welcome!


End file.
